A group of humpbacks tried to stop orcas from hunting a sea lion off the coast of California, boaters said.
Morgan Quimby
Monterey Bay Whale Watch
Humpback whales were spotted trying to stop orcas from hunting off the coast of California in a “rare” interaction, boaters said.
The “once in a lifetime trip” took place on Oct. 5, when boaters came across the killer whale orca pod known as CA51A’s, according to a Facebook post by the Monterey Bay Whale Watch.
When boaters arrived, the orcas were mid-hunt, attempting to snag a sea lion before a humpback whale pair decided to “charge into the area.”
Eventually, the orcas were swarmed by at least four humpbacks trying to disrupt their hunt, boaters said.
Although the hunt was a success, the humpback whales didn’t stop there as they even tried to prevent the orcas from feeding, boaters said.
Then, the humpbacks “gave up,” leading to a “celebratory breaching” from the orcas, boaters said.
Killer whales are known to be the ocean’s top predator, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The highly social animal usually travels in pods of a few individuals to 20 or more, NOAA said.
As for why the humpbacks felt the need to attempt to protect the sea lion, scientists have theorized that the whales may engage in “altruistic behavior” as a means to help another species, according to Phys’ website.
Another theory behind the protection is that humpback whales are known to “drive off killer whales” as a means to protect their babies, and any signs of attacking may cause them to enter protector mode, the idea behind wanting to help any other animal in distress “could not be ruled out,” the website read.
A killer whale was seen breaching off the coast of California, boaters said. Morgan Quimby Monterey Bay Whale Watch
Toward the end of the trip, boaters saw an orca named Andi breach multiple times by the boat along with her daughter, Astrid, also leaping out of the water, boaters said.
Monterey is about a 120-mile drive southeast from San Francisco.
Keepers with the Zoo’s American Trail exhibit noticed that Summer, a female California sea lion, was lethargic and not eating on June 26.
Summer, the National Zoo’s oldest sea lion, died June 27 at the age of 19, the Zoo announced Friday. (Courtesy Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute)
Summer, the oldest sea lion at Smithsonian’s National Zoo, was humanely euthanized on June 27, the zoo announced Friday. She was 19.
Keepers with the zoo’s American Trail exhibit noticed that Summer, a female California sea lion, was lethargic and not eating on June 26, according to a news release from the zoo. The zoo’s veterinary team gave her fluids, antibiotics and steroids, but her condition had not gotten any better by the next day.
The veterinary team conducted a follow-up exam, which showed signs of kidney failure, as well as potential heart disease. That’s when the zoo’s veterinary and animal care teams “made the difficult decision” to euthanize Summer due to concerns about her quality of life, according to the release.
According to a necropsy performed by zoo pathologists, Summer had abnormalities in her kidneys and fluid in her lungs and trachea. The zoo said a full pathology report will come out in the next few weeks.
Summer was a California girl, born on the beaches of Malibu on June 17, 2005, according to the zoo. She was abandoned by her mother shortly after birth and taken in by wildlife rehabilitators for hand-rearing.
Summer made her D.C. debut in 2006, when she came to the zoo with another female sea lion named Calli.
“If Summer didn’t want to do something, she would let you know,” said Ashley Graham, assistant curator of American Trail. “She always kept keepers on their toes.”
According to the zoo, while she could have an attitude with keepers, Summer was “particularly gentle” with the younger sea lions. She never had pups of her own, but was like a “second mom” to Calli’s little ones and was always the first adult to be introduced to juveniles, keepers said.
The median life expectancy for California sea lions in human care is 20 to 25 years, according to the news release.
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On May 7, Patrick Robinson took a boat out to Año Nuevo Island to survey the sea lions that come to birth on this rocky outcropping north of Monterey Bay.
The shore was littered with dead pups — babies that looked as though they’d been delivered too early and therefore were too weak and small to nurse, or had been dead at birth.
Similar observations were being made further down the coast on San Miguel Island in the Channel Islands — where massive colonies of sea lions gather every year — and as far south as Mexico.
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Robinson, the director of UC Santa Cruz’s Año Nuevo Reserve, said it’s not unusual to see some dead pups this time of year. He said sick or malnourished females occasionally stop on their way south to abort. But the numbers he was seeing were alarming. And with the peak of birthing season still several weeks away, it augurs a potentially serious and worrisome situation.
Stranding coordinators and biologists up and down the California coast say there is clearly something going on, but they still don’t know what.
Tests for bird flu — which has obliterated populations of sea lions and elephant seals in South America — are being processed. So, too, are tests for domoic acid, which has poisoned large numbers of sea lions in the past, as well as other common pathogens.
“In a typical year, one might expect to see 5 to 10,” dead pups, said Megan Moriarty, a veterinarian at UC Santa Cruz. “But we have now counted 250 to 300 dead sea lion pups” on Año Nuevo Island.
She said observations included dead or stillborn pups, aborted fetuses, malnourished pups, and adult females with dystocia — difficult births — who are also thin.
“Unfortunately, widespread premature dead pups have also been reported in the Channel Islands (San Miguel), which is a crucial nursery area for California sea lions,” she said. “The cause and impact of these mortalities remains unknown.”
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She and Sharon Melin, a research biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Alaska Fisheries Science Center, said there are many potential reasons for widespread sea lion pup mortalities, including environmental factors, such as malnourishment, lack of available food related to El Niño, infectious causes (bacteria, viruses such as leptospirosis, influenza, brucella, coxiella, and others), and toxins (such as domoic acid).
And although they both think testing for bird flu is warranted — considering it is a multi-species global outbreak — “we have not observed neurologic or respiratory signs in the sea lions at Año Nuevo,” Moriarty said.
“Reproductive failures and stillborn animals have not been a common finding with influenza A infections in marine mammals globally,” she said.
Melin said about 25,000 pups are born in the Channel Islands every year.
“In some years — particularly in El Niño years, or sometimes heatwave years or other oddities that go on in the environment — we’ll have something like 20% to 30% premature pups,” she said.
She said the pups born this time of year are often not “fully baked.”
“They could just stay in a little bit longer … and probably if you could put them in an incubator and take care of them, they might survive,” she said.
And when necropsies are done on these tiny pups, “you’ll see that the very last thing to develop fully are their lungs. … So they’re just not quite fully developed enough to breathe on their own and to be successful. They’ll sometimes live for a couple days at this point, but can’t nurse and don’t have the motor skills to hold their head up or nurse effectively.”
She said the mothers will usually try hard to get the pups to nurse, “they don’t know what’s going on, and they’re trying to figure out why they’re not nursing. So there’s kind of a lot of interaction that goes on there, but usually the pup will just end up dying after a short period of time.”
Michael Milstein, a spokesperson for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said the most recent fisheries survey found “considerable declines in anchovy off the south half of the state, where most of the strandings are.”
He said observations of predators and seabirds were more scattered, “suggesting they are tracking more dispersed prey.” He said surveys farther north have not yet been completed.
This year, fishery managers decided to ban salmon fishing along the coast and in rivers for a second straight year, seeking to help chinook stocks recover.
Stranding coordinators and biologists say the good news is that the California sea lion population is healthy and robust; however, rescue centers are filling up with sick and malnourished pups.
While many families spent Thanksgiving watching football in their living rooms, some lucky few spent it watching killer whales punt a sea lion 20 feet into the air in Monterey Bay.
About 120 people aboard a Monterey Bay Whale Watch boat Thanksgiving morning witnessed a rare sighting of a pod of killer whales hunting sea lions in the bay. A few minutes into the encounter, one whale punted a sea lion almost 20 feet into the air, a common hunting tactic used by killer whales to slow down and exhaust its prey, marine biologist Colleen Talty said.
Although many people on the boat were excited to lay eyes on the killer whales, some raised concern about the well-being of the sea lions, according to a photographer on the boat who called the scene “bittersweet” but a necessary part of nature.
“Of course you feel bad for the sea lion, but you have to remember it’s nature and without sea lions, the pod wouldn’t survive without the food,” photographer Morgan Quimby said.
Talty, who has seen a sea lion punt “multiple times” in her six years of working at Monterey Bay Whale Watch, said witnessing such a moment is quite rare.
“You have to be at the right place at the right time,” Talty said. “You could even get the hunt when they’ve already punted the sea lion, because oftentimes that’s done in the beginning of the hunt when they’re first trying to get the sea lion exhausted, separate it if it’s in a group.”
Based on the behavior of the four whales, Talty said it was a training session for the new calf in the pod that was learning how to hunt with its mother, grandmother and aunt.
“Once they successfully killed a sea lion, the members of the pod took turns displaying attack maneuvers and behaviors to further instruct their newest pod member on how to hunt,” Monterey Bay Whale Watch said Friday on Facebook.
Monterey Bay Whale Watch has seen this particular family of killer whales, known as the CA51As, in the bay for over 30 years and across four generations of whales, Talty said.
A killer whale punts a sea lion almost 20 feet into the air, a common hunting tactic used by killer whales to slow down and exhaust its prey.
(Morgan Quimby Photography)
Quimby was on the boat Thursday morning and caught the rare sighting on camera. The erratic movements of the whales made it challenging for her to photograph them, so she decided to focus her lens on one of the four or five different groups of sea lions in the water. The pack of sea lions she had her camera focused on happened to be the one the killer whales went after.
“Any time there are killer whales in the area, I’m constantly ready, following them, tracking them with my camera, trying to make sure I don’t miss any of the shots, any of their behavior,” she said.
The hunting session began around 10:30 a.m. and went on for almost two hours before the whales’ movements slowed down and they finished feasting, Quimby said.
“They’re so family driven and intelligent, so to be able to watch them teaching this several-month-old calf how to hunt and how to survive is just such a special and intimate moment that we were lucky to witness,” she said.
